1950's Cocktail Fare

If you were a child of the 50s or 60s, chances are that your parents held 'cocktail parties' and made food that would astonish us today, especially if we were 'foodies'. I came across some pics that I thought some might enjoy. If you have any please post the things you recall.

Afraid I remember something that looks like the spaghetti-o cocktail weenie mould.

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I have no knowledge of that era but going back even further are the cocktails and canapes served during Prohibition. A very fun read is Shake 'Em Up!: A Practical Handbook of Polite Drinking by Virginia Elliott, Phil D. Stong, Amy Stewart (Introduction), Herb Roth (Illustrator). It's a humorous time capsule of cocktails, recipes, and entertaining etiquette in that era. Some of the wacky snacks are actually quite good.

[Jenise]

Bill, my parents didn't entertain at home so I have zero notion of what adults on the cocktail circuit were eating when we were kids. By the time I was an adult, cocktail weenies in barbecue sauce and crudite platters were all the rage. Unfortunately, thanks in part to convenience-packaged and tasteless 'baby carrots', I still see both, though in recent years Costco frozen meatballs in some kind of sauce from a jar have pretty much supplanted the cocktail weenie.

Speaking of that, though, in my neighborhood a Trader Joe's frozen U-bake product that are cocktail weenies inside a biscuit-like dough are suddenly popular. And they're not bad: I avoid such food for health reasons, but not because they don't taste good.

Those cracker kabobs in the grapefruit look gross, never could stand any type of pressed, canned meats like that. Grew up on lots of fish grandpa caught in Humboldt Bay and the ocean, his own chickens and goat (until I discovered I was eating my pets) then I never ate goat again. I was really not exposed to much beef until I met Gene. He and his dad owned a large meat cutting plant and provided most of the meats to the restaurants, hotels and public in the coastal towns near Eureka. Cocktail hour was the big thing when I grew up and where I learned that I liked martini's with a very good olive and smoked oysters. Loved the combo. We ate Sunday dinner every week at my aunts home. I rode horses all day with my cousins while my mom helped my aunt cook a huge dinner for us six cousins and the grownups. My aunt was big on broiled grapefruit halves with a mint sauce on top for an appetizer. or she made a tray of fresh raw veggies for us to much on, all straight out of her garden. She was a hug Julia Childs fan and she could really cook. Grandpa attempted to make wine....it was horrible.

Karen, I had never heard of broiled grapefruit with mint sauce, but am fascinated by what it might taste like!

[Jenise]

Karen, I had never heard of broiled grapefruit with mint sauce, but am fascinated by what it might taste like!

I was once served broiled grapefruit, but it wasn't mint sauce on top. Angostura bitters, maybe?

Regardless, Karen what an idyllic childhood you had. Riding horses all day Sunday and then a big family dinner--I definitely wanted to be in a family like yours.

I'm impressed by that pousse-cafe jello mold. It must have taken ages to make.

-Paul W.

I am too, Paul, at least for the appearance.

When I was a child we had a grandmother that always made the same thing - a round jelly mould using lime jello and (IIRC) pineapple. I'm not sure I saw anyone actually eating any, at least not more than once.and we usually had to rave about it the next day despite having previously consigned it to the garbage.

As I mentioned in a nearby thread, my folks hardly drank alcohol at all so there were no cocktail parties at my house. The closest tale I can tell is, when family would come over, we'd buy trays of franks-in-blankets and mini potato knishes. (It looked Jewish, anyway....)

Karen, I had never heard of broiled grapefruit with mint sauce, but am fascinated by what it might taste like!

Bill, not sure it was exactly a sauce, I recall her taking a bottle out of a cabinet and drizzling a little over about midway through. I made it a time or two in early years, and I am now thinking it may have been crème de menthe. It delicious and we all loved it.
It may have even been this...

https://www.sidechef.com/recipes/2315/g ... rapefruit/

Karen, I had never heard of broiled grapefruit with mint sauce, but am fascinated by what it might taste like!

I was once served broiled grapefruit, but it wasn't mint sauce on top. Angostura bitters, maybe?

Regardless, Karen what an idyllic childhood you had. Riding horses all day Sunday and then a big family dinner--I definitely wanted to be in a family like yours.

Work did come with it Jenise, horses had to be untacked, brushed and then taken to stall and fed. Then we had to feed the Dalmatian dogs they had and the Siamese cats. Of course, we were all animal lovers so it was fun. We also got to climb ladders and pick a lot of cherries before the birds got to them, but that was fun too! My aunt was very fussy and everything had to be done just so....

Sounds like your childhood was like mine - couldn't escape the horses and always something to do. And I couldn't escape it at home (we only went to the farm on weekends) as we kept two horses there!

[Jenise]

Where was the farm?

A childhood with horses - exactly what I yearned for when I was small. But it was not to be. "All horses are good for is turning good hay into sh*t," was my father's last word on the subject, so no ponies for Matilda.

I don't recall much about my parents' entertaining when I was very young. If my father had been fishing, there were immense fish fry-up suppers, involving lots of beer for the men and a sparkling wine called Barossa Pearl for the ladies.

Other than fish suppers, I do remember immense trays of sandwiches - white bread, with the crusts off, because in the days before sliced bread, the bread was not square. Until the mid 60s, we had high-top loaves with rounded tops that did not lend themselves to perfect triangular sandwiches without some trimming. I don't recall my mother going in for things moulded in aspic, but there were things on toothpicks. A cube of cheese, a mint leaf, and a segment of tinned pineapple, for example.